Hager v. Melton

66 S.E. 13, 66 W. Va. 62, 1909 W. Va. LEXIS 125
CourtWest Virginia Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 26, 1909
StatusPublished
Cited by27 cases

This text of 66 S.E. 13 (Hager v. Melton) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering West Virginia Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hager v. Melton, 66 S.E. 13, 66 W. Va. 62, 1909 W. Va. LEXIS 125 (W. Va. 1909).

Opinion

Poffenbarger, Judge:

The City of Charleston complains of a decree of the circuit court of Kanawha county, perpetually enjoining the sheriff of said county from selling certain lots, owned by Nancy J. Hager, to enforce the city’s lien thereon for street paving. The property was certified to the Auditor of the State, as delinquent for non-payment of these assessments, and he certified it to the sheriff of the county for sale as if delinquent for non-payment of ordinary taxes. The sale was enjoined, not merely for irregularity in the sale proceeding, such as defective notice or the like, but also for lack of ri^ht and power in the city to sell the property. The decree declaréis the assessment invalid, illegal and void, cancels and sets it aside as constituting a cloud on the plaintiff’s title, and orders the recordation of a copy of the decree in the clerk’s office of the county court, to operate as a complete discharge and release of the alleged assessment and lien.

The alleged grounds of invalidity in the lien and sale proceedings are, (1) that the ordinance under which the paving was done never became operative or took effect, because it was not published and the evidence of the publication thereof recorded in the manner prescribed by the charter; (2) the contract for the work was not let to the lowest bidder; (3) the assessment was made against three lots as a whole and not against the lots separately, on an apportionment made; (4) the assessment includes apportionment to the plaintiff of the cost of paving street crossings, not authorized by the law; (5) no al-[66]*66lowanee is made for a portion of the cost of paving paid by the street railway company; (6) property cannot be sold for nonpayment of special assessments, unless certified for sale for other taxes at the same time; (7) the return of delinquency is defective, the affidavit appended to the list being insufficient; (8) the notice of sale is misleading and insufficient.

Section 20 of the charter of the city, passed in 1895, as amended by chapter 36 of the Acts of 1899, provides “that no order, or ordinance imposing, or providing for the imposition of, any assessment, fine or penalty, other than the ordinary annual levy of city taxes, shall * * * go into effect unless and until it shall have been published once a week, for two successive weeks, in some newspaper of general circulation in, and published in, said city, nor unless, and until, the affidavit of the publisher of said paper to such publication be returned to, and spread upon the journal of, the council.” The inhibitory terms of this statute, saying no such ordinance shall go into effect unless, nor until, published and the añida vit of the publisher returned to and spread upon the journal, make these requirements clearly mandatory. 21 A. & E. Eng. Enc. Law 969. If the terms were not prohibitory, .it would be, according to almost uniform authority, only directory, Id.; but, as the legislature has seen fit to use terms generally regarded by the courts as importing intention not to give effect or virtue to an act done in a manner different from that prescribed, we must respect the great weight of judicial opinion and the expression of legislative will as it is interpreted thereby. It is urged that this section was impliedly repealed by the amendment and reenactment of section 28 of the city charter by chapter 152 of the Acts of 1901, since said section 28, as so amended, grants powers and prescribes regulations, concerning the permanent paving of streets, and gives remedies for the collection of the cost thereof, and does not require such publication and recordation of'the evidence thereof. This position is untenable. Chapter 152 of the Acts of 1901 makes no direct reference to said section 20 of the charter. That section relates to the passage of ordinances, imposing special assessments and penalties generally, not merely to those applicable to street improvéments. Section 28, as amended, makes'no provision on that subject. It confers certain powers, without saying how the city shall express its [67]*67will or volition in exercising them and preserve the evidence thereof. Said section does not purport to be a comprehensive provision, covering all that pertains in any way to street improvements, including the acquisition of jurisdiction, cost, assessment and collection, so as to make it exclusive of all other provisions, relating thereto. The rule invoked is clearly not applicable. The section must be read as part of the chapter. It repeals nothing to which it is not irreconcilably repugnant, and no difficulty whatever is found in allowing section 30 to have full operation and effect consistently with the terms of section 38.

Whether the ordinance providing for the paving of Virginia Avenue, from Charleston Street to Virginia Street, the portion thereof on which the property in question abuts, was published as the charter requires, and the affidavit of the publication thereof spread upon the journal, must be determined, in part, by oral testimony, as to the facts and circumstances tending to show that the ordinance was published, and an affidavit thereof made and spread upon the journal. That such evidence exists is disclosed by this record in affidavits, exhibited with the answer and formally filed on the hearing, over the objection of the plaintiff. The objection to the filing thereof ought to have been sustained. Herold v. Craig, 59 W. Va. 353. These affidavits cannot be admitted to prove the averments of the answer, and the facts stated in them cannot be considered without competent evidence thereof. However, as the affidavits are in the record, the record discloses the probable, almost certain, 'existence of the evidence stated in them, and the power of the defendant tq procure and put it into the record in proper form.; The facts which this evidence would disclose are: The ordinance was published in the Charleston Daily Mail on the 34th day of July, 1903, and on the first day of August, 1903. It was thé custom of the publisher of that paper to make affidavit to all city publications and deliver them to the recorder or some other officer. It was also the custom of the recorder not to actually transcribe the ordinance and affidavit into the journal, but to paste them therein. While the journal does not contain the affidavit of the publication of the ordinance in question, so pasted therein, it does contain other similar affidavits. It also bears evidence of the loss or abstraction of papers that had been pasted in it. The publication as to Virginia Avenue was near the same time as the [68]*68publication of the ordinance for the paving of Bigley Avenue, and the affidavit of the. publication of said last named ordinance is pasted in the journal. There is no evidence that any other kind of papers were pasted in it. If the evidence of these facts and circhmstánces were iii the record in competent form, it would naturally suggest to the mind that the affidavit in question was one of the papers pasted in the journal and subsequently lost, and we think it would suffice to prove such recordation and also that this would be a sufficient spreading of the same on the journal within the meaning of the statute, which says the ordinance and affidavit shall be “spread” on the record. The statute does not say it shall be transcribed or recorded, but it obviously means recorded. Whether actual transcription is necessary to effect a recordation depends, in our judgment, upon the character of the record.

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Bluebook (online)
66 S.E. 13, 66 W. Va. 62, 1909 W. Va. LEXIS 125, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hager-v-melton-wva-1909.